


Breaking Through

by Neverever



Category: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Guilt, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-04 18:59:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10286660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverever/pseuds/Neverever
Summary: Tony can't shake the guilt of nearly killing Steve while under the Purple Man's control.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My assignment was a Steve/Tony fic set in the Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes canon. 
> 
> Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes had many amazing adaptations of major Avengers stories. The Emperor Stark episode reference Civil War with Steve and Tony having a grand melee fight for a big part of the episode. Although the cartoon episode ends happier for Steve and Tony than the comics one.
> 
> Also, I found my OTP Steve/Tony through Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. The opening sequence from The Man Who Stole Tomorrow where Steve gets Tony to spar with him intrigued me and I had to find out more about Tony and Steve. And here we are.
> 
> Big thanks to my beta.
> 
> Hope you enjoy the story!

What if he had killed Steve?

Tony couldn’t shake the thought. He put his welding torch down and pushed up his goggles with a sigh. He had lived a lifetime since the Purple Man Incident last month. He rubbed his face, smearing soot and grease into his skin. He couldn’t forget what he had nearly made Tony do, nor the look in Steve’s eyes as Tony put his armored boot on Steve’s neck.

“Sir, you have been up for nearly 18 hours without sleep,” Jarvis announced. 

“Noted,” Tony replied. He checked his drawings again, intent on fixing the catch around the edge of the palm-set repulsor. One wrong move in a fight and the repulsor could be ripped right out of the gauntlet.

“Sir, Ms. Potts has informed me that you have an important director’s meeting at Stark Industries later today that you must attend.”

Ugh. Well, if Pepper notified Jarvis, it must be important. “Anything else?”

“You have dinner with the Avengers, an appointment set up by Captain Rogers.”

Tony froze at the mention of Steve’s name. “Sure, J,” he mumbled.

“It’s 3 am, sir,” Jarvis insisted. “Ms. Potts is concerned that you are spending all your time in your workshop. I believe the expression is 24/7?”

Sleep wasn’t going to bring him rest. All sleep brought him were memories of Steve under his boot and the ozone smell of repulsor blast hitting the shield and the horrible voice of the Purple Man egging him on to kill Steve.

He could have killed Steve. And nothing was going to erase that fact. Tony picked up the welding torch again, drunk on fatigue, and aimed it carefully at the gauntlet. 

~~~~~

The director’s meeting went better than expected. Stock was up, everyone wanted to buy Stark tech, the biomedical division made important discoveries. Tony sat through three hours of presentations, tensely waiting for a comment about the Purple Man. 

But nothing. Only congratulations and handshakes.

It was like that everywhere Tony went. Pretty much everyone had decided never to talk about the Incident again now that order was restored to the world, give or take a political revolution or two. Like a whole month never happened. Even motormouth Clint was reduced to a single comment of “Crazy stuff, man” and a shrug. The Daily Bugle published no stories except for terse references to a late unpleasantness.

Tony knew that they knew. The team knew what had happened in Tony’s office. SHIELD knew. Tony watched Steve oversee stony-faced SHIELD agents as they trundled the Purple Man off to their latest super-secure prison for the super powered. Video of the fight had been replayed at the combined Avengers-SHIELD debriefing. Maria Hill rolled her eyes at him and declared that Tony wasn’t to blame for the Purple Man. The scientists said it was impossible to resist him at close range. 

Then, people continued living as if nothing happened.

Worse of all, Steve said nothing but nice, encouraging things to Tony. He shrugged the fight off, like the team had taken down Whirlwind in the middle of a crime spree on 5th Avenue, not a madman bent on world domination through Tony.

Tony bought coffee on his way over to the mansion and thought about Steve. He was thinking about Steve more often these days. Something had changed between them after the Purple Man Incident. He couldn’t put his finger on it but he could feel it in his bones. 

The barista handed him his coffee. “Thank you, Iron Man!” she said. “You’re the greatest.”

~~~~~

Tony arrived earlier than expected for dinner, but no one was around. He hung out in the library scrolling through messages on his phone. He heard the door open and Jan and Clint arrive.

“Steve is worried out of his mind about Tony. Who is absolutely miserable,” Jan said.

Tony perked up at that. Why would Steve be worried about him? 

“About what? The Purple Man thing?” Clint replied. “We’ve been through worse before. I can think of a couple of alien invasions for one thing.”

“Yeah, but you know Tony,” Jan said. “He’s in this blame cycle for what happened. Hardly leaves his workshop, is not sleeping and is super grim when he’s around. None of that can be good.”

“He’ll work his way out of it eventually.”

“Tony’s my friend. I’ve known him forever. I think we should help him like he helps us, Clint. Steve would want us to do that, too.”

“Cap ain’t looking at Tony the same way you are.”

Jan sighed. “First things first. We got to get Tony back into his groove. Or he’ll get majorly sick from guilt.”

Tony took a deep breath to stop from shaking. He couldn't possibly be that bad. He was owning what he did wrong. 

It was simple once. He built an armor suit with all the bells and whistles and fought bad guys. He believed he wasn’t one of them. He was building a future, a great future with endless horizons. Even with all the work, he still ended up on the wrong side. Who could forget Emperor Stark?

And, he nearly killed Steve. Who was now a big part of his world. Losing Steve would be like losing his right arm. He had a particular fondness for his right arm.

Plastering on a happy face, he sauntered out of the library. “Hey, guys. What's for dinner?” he asked 

~~~~~

Carol was angry with herself for days for not being able to shake the Purple Man out of her mind like Cap or Clint. 

“I should have been stronger,” she muttered as she destroyed a punching bag in the mansion’s gym. Tony had a perfect view of the damage from his vantage point on the treadmill.

Lifting weights nearby, Clint put down his barbell. “It doesn’t work like that,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, well, you managed to break out of the mind control,” she snapped. 

“I’m either a simmering ball of rage or rebel to the core. I prefer rebel,” Clint joked. “Seriously, Carol, no one except Cap broke the mind control easily. And we’re not Cap. And even then he had help from Vision.”

She nodded tightly and gave yet another bag a roundhouse kick. “We should train for mind control. We’re supposed to protect people, not fall apart like wet tissues.”

Tony felt the blow. If he had trained. If he had anticipated. If he had kept his mouth shut. If he had used his brain. If he had done a thousand different things. 

“Not your fault, Tony,” Steve said in his wonderfully gravelly voice before he drank down his breakfast of raw eggs. 

“Not your fault, Tony,” Steve said as they stood on rooftops watching workers take down the Purple Man-ordered billboards. 

“Not your fault,” Steve grunted as they sparred. 

Tony let Steve push him around the ring, putting up the bare minimum of defense. Honestly, they shouldn’t be doing this. Tony couldn't stop thinking about the last time they fought. What he almost did.

Outside of the armor he wasn’t a match for Steve, no matter how far he had come with Steve’s training. Inside the suit, he was a killing machine, and it was a miracle Steve had managed to match him blow for blow. It didn’t matter in the end. Tony slowly gained the upper hand and Steve nearly died.

Tony knew instinctively that Steve had pulled his punches in their fight. Steve put a lot of effort in training him. They even reviewed tapes of their fights where Steve generously mentioned his own mistakes. Tony knew Steve’s rhythm and style, and he knew in his bones that Steve had held back. 

Tony hadn't. That made all the difference.

Steve watched him from the corner of his eye as he unwrapped his taped-up hands. All Tony could think about was being on the other end of those hands, gentle at rest, vicious in a fight.

“Not your fault, Tony,” Steve said reassuringly, squeezing Tony’s shoulder with one of those large hands. 

Steve could say that all he wanted, it wouldn’t help Tony sleep at night. His mind was restless, full of thoughts and plans and ideas. He was haunted by memories of Steve laid out in the wreckage of his office, completely at Tony’s mercy, with the Purple Man ordering Tony to kill his best friend.

“Free for dinner?” Steve asked.

“What?” Tony asked, shaking free from his thoughts. “Oh -- sure.”

Over a dinner of restaurant food that barely sated Steve, they talked about the team, baseball, where Fury bought his eyepatches. Tony was easily distracted by the sparkle in Steve’s sky-blue eyes and his beautiful large hands. Steve had made an effort at fashion for once -- dressy shirt, pressed pants, looking like a man in his late 20s. A man on a date with his guy. Not the living, breathing WWII legend.

Tony felt a shiver. He shouldn't be thinking that way about Steve. Steve deserved the world. And Tony had thrown his chances away last month, assuming he’d ever had any.

Steve talked him into a movie. Then coffee after the movie. They walked back to the Mansion so late that even the New York traffic was sparse.

“I don’t get it,” Tony said. “I mean, I heard all that about why you didn’t do a prime-time press to explain the whole Skrull thing. I lowered myself to fight JJ Jameson over his crappy press coverage of you.” Tony shuddered. “I had to take a long shower to get the slime off.”

Steve shook his head. “Tony, nothing I said would have changed things. All I could do was keep being myself and work hard. People either believed me or not.”

“I still don’t know how you did it. But now you’re more popular than ever.” Tony put his hand on his neck. “Yeah -- the Purple Man -- I hope I can handle the fallout like you did the Skrull thing.”

“That’s different,” Steve said. “It’s not the same thing. You were a victim like everyone else. No one blames you for what happened.”

They stopped on the corner not far from the mansion under a streetlight. Steve’s hair shone in the halo of light and his eyes as bright as ever. For a minute Tony believed him. Wanted to believe that he could believe him. 

Tony had a funny feeling in his stomach as he looked at Steve. Like he had never really seen Steve before. Steve was gorgeous and beautiful, and maybe Tony might be a little in love. 

He should go home since it was so late. He could order a car to take him home. But why would he, when Steve smiled at him. He longed to push the curl of Steve’s hair off his forehead. 

Please don’t let the evening end, he silently begged Steve. “It’s late,” he said guiltily.

“Going to stay over tonight?” Steve asked with a smile.

“Sure.”

They decided to watch movies in the library on the big screen television. When the TV turned on, Tony caught the tail end of a news story about the Purple Man. His heart sank. 

“Tony, it’s not your fault,” Steve repeated. “This will all pass.”

“Yeah, well.” Tony shrugged and frowned. He snuck a look at Steve intently scrolling through the movie options. He had almost lost this -- lost Steve -- sitting here with him, laughing over bad movies. 

Steve was alive, he hadn’t killed Steve. Steve was right next to him, teasing him about Star Wars vs. Star Trek. Alive, warm and wanting to be with Tony. Maybe he really could forget what happened.

~~~~~

Tony shouldn't have a crush on Steve. He knew that much, he thought as he brushed his teeth and got ready for bed. But he couldn’t deny that he had practically floated up the stairs after a wonderful night with Steve. 

But the nightmares came back. 

All night he dreamed about nearly killing Steve, with a new, agonizing twist. He remembered Steve looking up at him with complete and utter trust. He trusted Tony to do the right thing. Tony’s eyes sprang open, and he sat up in bed and held his head in his hands with a groan. Steve had trusted him. He’d betrayed that trust. How could he continue to face Steve?

Tony stared at the ceiling of the Avengers guest room. Nicely decorated and pleasant enough, he had spare clothes tucked away in the drawers for the nights he spent over, but it wasn’t home. Light slanting past the edges of the black-out curtains hinted that it was near morning. He should probably get up. Even if he felt like he’d been run over by a truck and left for dead.

He clung to the hope that someone had made coffee already.

~~~~~

“You have an appointment with me, mister,” Steve announced as he entered Tony’s workshop.

“Jarvis?” Tony asked automatically, not even looking up from the armor he was working on.

“Captain Rogers is correct. He does have an appointment with you.”

Feeling fragile from the horrors of the night before, Tony blinked a few times as he racked his brain for what in hell Steve wanted to talk about. “Um --”

“I set it up this morning. We’re going for a ride.” Steve tossed a motorcycle helmet at Tony, who barely caught it in time.

Steve was decked out in leather jacket and jeans, Tony’s favorite Steve outfit. Worn to the core, Tony had no protest or fight left in him to turn Steve down. Not that he would ever turn Steve down, to be honest, especially not when Steve was smiling at him like he was greatest thing on the planet. 

“I should probably clean up or something,” Tony muttered. 

“I’ll give you a few minutes. Meet in the garage.”

In a half-hour, Tony had his arms wrapped around Steve’s waist, heading out of New York on Steve’s motorcycle. The wind whipped past them as Steve drove fast down the highway. Tony should probably be worried than he was as Steve wove in and out of heavy traffic. But it was Steve and he was just as much an adrenaline junkie as Tony.

Eventually Steve turned into a small state park and they pulled over to park at a secluded overlook. 

“So you had a burning need to see the Hudson River?” Tony said as he took his helmet off.

Steve shrugged. “I thought you needed a change of scenery.” He walked over and sat down on the short stone wall. 

“Well,” Tony said doubtfully. “I guess it's pretty.”

They watched the river in silence for a few minutes. “We could be doing this on a rooftop in Manhattan right now,” Tony pointed out.

Steve grinned at him. “Allergic to fresh air?”

“I’m a busy guy.” Tony rubbed his hands on his thighs and finally sat down next to Steve. 

“It’s not your fault,” Steve repeated.

“Yeah, you keep saying that and it doesn’t change what happened,” Tony said. He couldn’t look at Steve.

“Tony.” Steve’s voice cracked, sending a knife through Tony’s heart. “Tony, why won't you believe us when we tell you that?”

Tony bit his lip and braced his hands on the rough stone bench. The fresh air and green trees were more soothing than New York traffic and pigeons. And he was still hurting Steve. He bent his head to stare at the ground. 

“They should repave the sidewalk here,” he said.

“You didn’t read the report or watch the video, did you?” Steve asked. 

“I lived it, Cap, I don’t need --”

“Do you know SHIELD’s assessment of your involvement in the Purple Man Incident? That you fought as best you could -- leaving Vision alone in the mansion, sending me there, building in failsafes? That you annoyed and angered the Purple Man with every attempt you made to shake off the mind control?”

Tony took a deep breath, every muscle tense and wanting to be anywhere but there. “I don’t remember any of that, Steve. I remember that I nearly killed you --”

“None of us remember what it was like under the mind control,” Steve explained. “You only remember because you were close to breaking free --”

Tony sprang to his feet and began to pace. Thank goodness he had his cell phone on him. He could call for a ride or a suit and flee to California. “Look, I’m guilty as hell, Steve. And, damn it all, I almost killed someone I love more than life itself --”

Steve said nothing. Tony stopped, his voice trailing to nothing. An early summer breeze stirred the trees and stray patches of grass, filling the air with the sound of rustling leaves. Tony felt the sun hot on his skin and the pavement hard beneath his feet as his breath stuck in his throat. 

“I thought that might be it,” Steve confessed.

Tony stopped, brow clenched, and looked straight at Steve. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Steve patted the wall. “Come here, Tony.”

“Just forget what I said --” Tony babbled as his body decided to sit next to Steve with no conscious agreement from his brain. 

“It’s okay,” Steve said, putting one of those large wonderful warm hands on his shoulder, then around his shoulders. Tony leaned into Steve’s neck and let the tears finally come. Steve’s hand ran up and down Tony’s back as he sobbed into Steve’s leather jacket. 

“It’s okay,” he repeated, letting Tony cry it out.

They sat there with Tony leaning into Steve even after he ran out of tears. “This is ridiculous,” he muttered.

“Not ridiculous at all.” Steve pressed a kiss to his forehead and brushed back his hair. “Tony, I knew you wouldn’t kill me. I saw you fighting back -- and I love you too.”

Tony tried to pull away, but Steve’s warmth and arm held him still. “This is the weirdest day,” he said at last, jokingly.

“Not weird at all. I’ve been in love with you for a long time. I thought about you all the time when I was prisoner on that Skrull ship, but I didn’t have the words for how I felt. Not until I saw you nearly destroy yourself trying to not hurt me.”

“Steve --”

“Clint and Carol fought me too, they wouldn’t have hesitated to take me out. Clint sure didn’t -- he ran me down on the skycycle.” 

He cupped the back of Tony’s neck with one hand and lifted Tony’s chin with the other. He pressed his lips to Tony’s. “Anyone but you would have used the repulsor immediately.”

“Yeah?” Tony said in a daze from Steve kissing him. 

“Yes. And it gets better. It does, take it from me. I’ll be there right with you,” Steve vowed. “And this will be all in the past.”

“We’ll probably get attacked by the Kree or something to give us more things to be upset over.”

They both laughed. 

“True,” Steve admitted. He let Tony go and they swung their legs over the wall so that they were facing the river. Steve slung his left arm over Tony’s shoulder, holding him close.

“I could get used to this,” Tony said.

“I hope you do.”

He entwined his hand in Steve’s and said nothing, just let himself sink into Steve’s solid warmth and caressing fingers. “Let’s just sit here and you can tell me why you think it’s a good idea to love me.”

“No place I’d rather be.”

“Same here, Steve.” He kissed Steve’s cheek.


End file.
